Чарльз Соул - Star Wars - Light of the Jedi (The High Republic)

“Cloaking fields?” he called out.

“Doesn’t seem to be, Admiral,” one of his bridge officers responded. “Scans suggest they’re jumping in and out of hyperspace. Tiny little leaps, sometimes as short as a kilometer.”

“That’s not possible,” Kronara said.

The officer did not respond, wisely enough. Obviously it was not impossible—the blasted ships were doing it there, right in front of his eyes.

Another Longbeam exploded—that was three good people lost, minimum. Some ships in that class held as many as twenty-four.

This was…how could you fight something like this? It was like battling chaos itself. Like trying to shoot down…a storm.

On the Ataraxia, Avar Kriss hovered in the air, listening to the song of the Force. She was attempting to focus only on the notes of the Nihil ships as they dipped in and out of hyperspace, using their bizarre tactic to deadly effect. The Nihil were just one thread in the great melody of the battle, however, and challenging to isolate. Choppy, staccato, disappearing and reappearing. Difficult to follow.

She frowned.

It did not help that her mind rang with the absence of the Jedi they had just lost. The great Jora Malli, but so many others. An accident, impossible to foresee, but that did not lessen the tragedy.

There.

There.

She had it. The Force had shown her the song of the Nihil, how they were flying and fighting. She could hear it clearly—and that meant she knew not just what was happening, but also, to some small degree, what would.

Avar reached out to the Jedi fighting in their Vectors through the net she created, giving them guidance, helping them hear what she heard, so they could anticipate where the Nihil ships would appear—and end this fight once and for all.

Elzar Mann flew his Vector, diving and weaving through the battle, moving from target to target, taking shots as they presented themselves. The Drift had disintegrated after the collision with the Nihil vessel took out more than ten of their ships, and now every Jedi found their own path through the fight.

Avar was there, of course, in the back of his mind, holding all the Jedi together, helping and guiding as she always did. He did not quite understand what she was doing—the information she was passing along was diffuse—but he was hitting his targets, every bolt finding a Nihil ship, often just as it fell from hyperspace.

It almost didn’t matter what Avar was doing. He just liked having her in his head.

Less appealing was the feel of the Nihil. They seemed to be creatures composed entirely of rage and fear. Strange beasts crawling along the very bottom of the Force sea in which all things swam.

Elzar Mann dived deep, hunting them one by one. It was amazing. They were so easy to find. Their anger made them vulnerable. The thing they thought made them strong, dangerous…it made them weak.

He fired again, and another Nihil ship vanished. He flew through the debris cloud, already seeking his next target.

“Are we…winning?” Dellex said from her monitoring station, trying to track the incomprehensible activity of the battle raging in space around the New Elite.

Kassav had no idea how to answer her question. Marchion Ro’s Battle Paths, whatever they were, seemed to have taken control of his Tempest’s ships through their Path engines, whipping them in and out of hyperspace, a new leap every few seconds. It was making them almost impossible for the Republic ships to hit, but it was unclear whether it was giving them any real advantage, either. The few communications they’d received from Strikes and Clouds out in the battle suggested confusion, even terror.

“Another message from the Eye,” Wet Bub called out. “Your private channel, Kassav.”

Marchion Ro, Kassav thought. Marchion blasted Ro.

He activated his comm and didn’t wait for Marchion to speak.

“What is this?” he said.

“Victory,” Marchion Ro said. “A long time coming. The first of many.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You killed my father, didn’t you?”

Kassav hesitated. Not long, but probably long enough.

“What are you talking about, Marchion? We’re dying out here!”

“I don’t know for sure it was you,” said the Eye of the Nihil, “but I’m choosing to believe it was. And if it wasn’t, well, Lourna Dee and Pan Eyta…their time will come. Goodbye, Kassav, and thank you. You and your Tempest are about to save the Nihil. We thank you for your sacrifice.”

The connection ended, and Kassav looked out the viewport at the battle. He saw what was happening, and so did everyone else on the bridge.

“What are they…doing?” Gravhan said.

The ships of Kassav’s Tempest had changed tactics again. No longer just leaping from place to place through tiny hyperspace jumps, now they were actively targeting the Republic ships—leaping into them, colliding directly in the case of the smaller vessels and jumping inside the shield barriers of the larger cruisers and impacting against their hulls with massive blooms of fire and debris.

“Disconnect the Path engine!” Kassav shouted. “Right now!”

The Third Horizon shuddered as another Nihil craft exploded against its hull.

“Damage report!” Admiral Kronara called out.

This latest attacker had used the same trick a few others had managed—skipping out of lightspeed inside the Third Horizon ’s shields.

“Breach on decks three and four, but it was a non-essential area, Admiral—we’ve got emergency crews on the way, but it won’t affect any significant systems.”

He’d never seen anything like this. The Nihil weren’t fanatics, as far as he knew. They were just marauders. What would compel these people to kill themselves like this? They had to know the Republic would take them prisoner if at all possible. None of these people had to die.

“Send another transmission to the flagship,” he ordered. “Reiterate that we will accept their surrender, and they will all be treated humanely. There’s no need for this.”

Whatever he had imagined this engagement would be, it was not this. This was…slaughter.

The song had become sad, and Avar Kriss no longer wanted to listen to it. From what she could sense, the Nihil had become like small, wild creatures trapped in a cage, desperate to escape, doing anything they could, even if it hurt them.

Even if it killed them.

Such a terrible waste.

They’ve gone mad, Kronara thought.

He truly believed himself to be a man of peace, despite his profession. The cliché of a military man, delusional in almost every case. But not in his. Kronara knew there was a time for war, but it was to be as brief as possible, and no more destructive than necessary.

These Nihil, though…they were fighting when they did not have to. Dying when they did not have to. Suicide attacks—it was hard to imagine what would drive thinking beings to such tactics. There were not many left now, compared to their original numbers. He had recalled most of his fighters to the capital ships. It was mostly just the Jedi out there on the Republic side. The Vectors, and their pilots, had the maneuverability and reflexes to stay ahead of the Nihil’s hyperspace microjumps.

The area around the nebula was littered with slowly expanding debris clouds. A graveyard. The flagship was the only significant enemy vessel that remained, and so far it did not seem inclined to follow the smaller ships in a doomed ramming attack.

Mad beasts. They needed to be put down.

Kronara hated the thought. But he did not think he was wrong.

And as if on cue, a transmission came through to the bridge of the Third Horizon. A cold voice, but not emotionless. No, there was rage behind that tone, but controlled, focused like a diamond drill.